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When performing testing activities, whether it is web application penetration or usability testing, it is helpful to have example content to submit in web form fields. The same can be said for people trying to create sock-puppet or alias accounts on the Internet. We need to have sample/fake information so that we can set up the accounts that we need to perform our OSINT (Open Source Intelligence).

You see, some web sites require a login to access their data. And some show additional information to authenticated accounts versus anonymous ones. Other web applications will notify a user account which other user accounts have performed searches for their name or who viewed their profiles. For all these reasons, OSINT analysts need alias accounts. For all of these reasons and more, OSINT analysts need to generate sample/fake user profile information and we can turn to a web application to help us out. I’m talking about http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/advanced.php. This feature-rich, free site will create good dossiers for non-existent people. Take, for example, the profile I just created below.

To create this profile, I chose the default settings, an American male or female from 19-85 years old. The web app did the rest. Not only does it give the above info though, there is more data to help set up a fake account:

Some people have commented that this site’s foreign profiles are not perfect and sometimes don’t make sense (wrong names, non-random content…). I think the site provides a great value for your money (free!) and gives the analyst a head start on creating an alias profile to perform their OSINT.